RETURN TO INDEX PAGEBY CHARLES L. CUMMINGS
No other thing during the past seventy-five years can show the rapid and continuous advancement of the United States Post Office Department. It is told of the visit of General Lafayette to the present site of Braddock in 1825, that he was anxious to dispatch a letter to President John Quincy Adams in Washington. At that time there was no post office between Pittsburgh and Greensburg, and as a consequence it was necessary to send the letter to the former city for mailing. Mails were sent to Washington but once every fortnight, and then by "pony" express. The schedule time for the journey was three days, which was considered very fast. Today a letter mailed in the Braddock post office in the early morning reaches Washington the same afternoon.
It was in the year 1853 that President Franklin Pearce appointed the first Postmaster at "Braddock's Field, Pa." Previous to that date Turtle Creel: was the address of mail for the valley, the post office at that point having been established some twelve years before. In 1853 letters were few and far between to the average person, and the Postmaster, while considered a personage of importance by the citizens, required some other mean of livelihood in addition to the small amount paid by Uncle Sam for handling the mails. On December 27, 1853, William N. Fleming was appointed as the first Postmaster, and the post office was opened for business on January 18, 1854. Mr. Fleming kept a small store at a point near where the intersection of Tenth street and Braddock Avenue now is, and across from the Methodist church. This site was used as a post office until September 1861, when the building was burned, and the then Postmaster Fleming built a structure, part of which is still standing. The latter building is located near the corner of Robinson Street and Braddock Avenue.
Postmaster Fleming was succeeded by Henry Bailey, whose commission was dated June 21, 1855, and he in turn was succeeded by George M. Young on August 21, 1857. At the opening of the Civil War in 1861 Postmaster Young enlisted for service in the Pennsylvania volunteers, and served until wounded at the second battle of Bull Run. The present historian has been unable to find any further trace of Mr. Young, as to whether he ever returned to Braddock, or whether he died from the effects of his wounds.
Upon the resignation of Mr. Young, President Lincoln named Dr. William J. Lynn, who was commissioned on August 31, 1861. Dr. Lynn it was who moved the post office after the fire mentioned to the building still standing. It is told of the doctor that on some occasions when the mails would arrive he would be out calling on a patient, and patrons of the post office would be forced to await his return. On one occasion, so the story goes, a lady was at a very low point in health, and the mail was not distributed until the following day, the good doctor considering his duty to suffering humanity as far out weighing his duty to the Government. Doctor Lynn served the second longest term of any Postmaster in the history of the local office, his term extending to December 18, 1873, and then it was ended only at his own request, owing to his failing health.
On December 19, 1873 President Grant named as Postmaster William Fritzuis. Mr. Fritznis was a brother of Mrs. William H. Speer, living at present with her daughter (Mrs. Ellis Y. Hall) at 431 Second Street, Braddock. Mr. Fritzuis died the following spring, and he was succeeded a. Postmaster by his wife, Mrs. Mary A. Fritzuis, her commission dating from May 4, 1874. Mrs. Fritznis was the only woman commissioned Postmaster of Braddock, and is now the oldest living one. The lady served until
December 13, 1876, with credit to her sex and to the service. After leaving the service Mrs. Fritzuis married David H. Graham, and now lives at Meamimi, Florida.
On December 14, I 1876, James K. Mills, one of the original Mills boys, and whose death occurred a f ew years since at his home on the corner of Fourth street and Mills avenue, was appointed Postmaster. Mr.Mills moved the Post Of lice to a site on the corner of Bladdock Avenue and Ninth Stleet, during his term. fair. Mills' service was featured by two or three very far reaching changes in the post office, the main one being the change of the name of the office to correspond with that of the railroad stations and of the borough itself. On March 7, 1878 the President ordered the name changed from "Braddock's Field," to Braddock, and the post office made the first start toward metropolitan airs by being advanced from the lowest class (the fourth) to that of the third class. Mr. Mills had for his assistant for a time both Wallace K. Penn and William W. McCleary.
Mr. Mills refused to become a candidate for reappointment and on April 17, 1882, William W. McCleary was named, and the post office moved to a site where the Woolworth five and ten cent store is now located, a building being erected adjoining the old McCleary homestead. During Mr. McCleary's term of office Mr. George A. Todd, now cashier of the Braddock National Bank, served as his assistant.
The years 1882 and 1883 was the time of the depredations of the notorious Gordon gang in and around Braddock. Many business houses were robbed during this period, and the post office was no exception. Mr. McCleary occupied rooms directly back of and above the Post Office. One night he was awakened from his sleep by a noise which he thought was like an explosion in the office below him. Hurrying to a window he found that robbers were in the post office. Picking up the first thing in the room he could lay his hands on, he threw it through the window with the idea of alarming the neighborhood. The noise frightened the robbers and they made their get away, taking with them about $700 in postage stamps and $40 in money. The robbers were later captured, Mr. McCleary helping in the identification, but none of the loot was never recovered. The Department some time afterwards relieved the Postmaster of the burden of the loss of the stamps, but the money loss was made good by Mr. McCleary.
"Duke," as Mr. McCleary was known, served as Postmaster until April 6, 1886, when the first Democrat was appointed in the person of "Squire" J. M. Hughes. The squire found the duties of the office more exacting than he had either the time or inclination to devote to them, and resigned the first of the following June, and Daniel J. McCarthy, a brother of the present Chief of Police of Bracldock, was appointed June 11, 1886, by President Cleveland to fill the unexpired tat in. "Danny", as Mr. McCarthy was affectionately known by the great majority of the residents of the vicinity at that time, made one of the most popular postmasters in the office's history. At the time of his appointment Mr. McCarthy was conducting a weekly newspaper known as The Tribune, which later he consolidated with the Daily News when he came into possession of the latter paper .
The Republican party coming back into power, there was appointed for the first time on June 10, 1890, a man that nearly every one in Braddock and vicinity associates with the post office, Christian H. Sheets. At the time of the coming of Mr. Sheets as Postmaster the office was still located in the McCleary building, on the site of the Woolworth store, and the total receipts of the office for the year 1890 totaled but $8,654.24.
On January 1, 1892 the office receipts had expanded to over ten thousand dollars, the site of the post office was changed to a location on Library street (or Burton Street as then known) and the Department raised the standing of the office from the third to the second class.On December 1, 1892, the Department authorized the establishment of city delivery in the boroughs of Braddock and North Braddock, and provided for this service the appointment of four carriers. The Postmaster named the following men for the positions: Harry H. Fogie, Alva C. Nickel, Philip Roderus and Walter E. Collins. The first three named are still in the service, carrying mail daily at the local office, having served continuously since first appointed. Mr. Collins was a man well up in years and suffered from the effects of a wound received in the Civil War, and finding the work more arduous than he could stand, resigned some ten days after his appointment, Mr. Robert A. Price being given the vacancy thus caused.
Mr. Sheets served as Postmaster until the thirtieth of July, 1894, when the Democratic party again coming into power, President Cleveland appointed Mr. Moses M. Shaw as Postmaster, only after one of the bitterest contests for a political position in the history of the borough. Among other candidates for the position at that time were ax-postmaster Daniel J. McCarthy, M. M. Kier, and W. A. McDevitt, Henry L. Anderson and William L. Douglass. Mr. Shaw appointed as his assistant Mr. Walter McBeth.
On August 1, 1898, Christian H. Sheets was again appointed Postmaster to succeed Mr. Shaw, a position he held continuously through the line of Republican presidents until February 10, 1915, the longest period ever served by any Postmaster in Allegheny county up to that time.
During Mr. Sheets' service as Postmaster the Post Offlice was moved from the rooms in the Masonic building to quarters in the Braznell building directly across Library Street, remaining there for over eleven years, or until the completion of the Federal Building.
On October 31, 1900, the post office at Rankin Station was discontinued, and free delivery from the Braddock office was installed to serve that borough. Rankin Station had been a post office since August 20, 1886. Mr. Walter S. Colmery was the first postmaster, and was followed in succession by Mr. Owen W. Sheeky, on July 19, 1888, F. G. Bishoff on April 15, 1889, Owen W. Sheeky again on October 17, 1893, and finally by George W. Nash on September 27, 1897.
On December 9, 1907, a bill authorizing the expenditure of $150, 000 for the construction of a Post Office Building at Braddock, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Hon. John Dalzell, then the representative from this district. This amount was later reduced to $125,000 by the conference committee, and on May 30, 1908, the bill passed Congress. In the fall of that year the Government advertised for sites for the location of the building, and stipulated that sites offered must be approximately 150 feet square, preferably on the corner of two streets, and within eighty rods of the Pennsylvania railroad station. Bids were received for the following sites:
(1) Corner Verona street and Maple way, 120x160 feet, offered by Robert McDonald, for $32,000
(2) Corner John street and Maple way, 120x160 feet, offered by James A. Russell and Henry S. Leighton, for $34,000.
(3) Corner Sixth street and Maple way, 126x138 feet, offered by Nicholas Glasser, for $40,000.
(4) Corner Halket avenue and Tenth street, 75x185 feet, offered by Mrs. Elizabeth Dowling, for $22,000.
(5) Corner Parker avenue, Moody and Orchard streets, 150x150 feet, offered by Thomas James, for $40,000.
A representative from the Treasury Department visited Braddock, and made an attempt to secure a bid for a site on Braddock Avenue, but found the prices prohibitive, $1,100 a foot front being asked for ground at Seventh Street and Braddock Avenue.
The United States objecting to the amount asked by Mr. James, and having decided that that site best suited the needs of the Department, requested that gentleman to reduce his bid, but met with refusal. The Government then petitioned Court for the appointment of viewers looking to the condemnation of the site, and on August 10, 1910, the viewers allowed Mr. James $37,500.
The bid for the construction of the building complete was given to the Plowman Construction Company, of Philadelphia, Pa., for the sum of $83,293.24. Ground was broken on August 1, 1911, and the building was occupied by the Post Office on June 10, 1913.
On April 1, 1906, the Braddock office was raised to the rank of the first class; on November 4, 1911, it was made a depository for postal savings, and the parcel post was established January 1, 1913.
On February 11, 1915, after an absence of twenty years, Mr. Walter J. McBeth re-entered the postal service, this time as Postmaster, having been commissioned by President Wilson, January 25th. Great changes have been made for the betterment of the postal service during the little over two years of -the present postmaster, namely the establishment of six additional stations for the receipt of mail matter and other services of the postal system; the collection and delivery of mail by automobile, and day and night continuous service at the post office.
On January 18, 1854, when Postmaster William N. Fleming opened the first mail pouch reaching Braddock's Field, one cannot help wondering if he had even a faint dream of the magnitude of the present business. At the Braddock office there are 43 employees, the stamp sales exceed $50,000 annually, nearly a million dollars a year is handled in money orders, besides the thousands of pieces of mail matter handled daily by its employees. No other one item in the history of the local boroughs will better tend to show the magnitude of the growth of Braddock.